The Bridemaid is a newly creative film with many selling points. Meanwhile the story that may be known about Beethoven also give a hit this month.
November 13, 2006 (Press Release) --
The Bridesmaid" ("La Demoiselle d'honneur")
Doting godmothers and nasty stepmothers pop up in fairy tales. Mothers-in-law are often typecast for comedy. Are bridesmaids in line to embody horror? Oui, answers "The Bridesmaid," a 1989 crime novel by Ruth RendellFrench adapted by auteur Claude Chabrol and co-writer Pierre Leccia.
Senta (Laura Smet) is the title character of this homicide-laced love story embroidered with comic and macabre threads. Philippe (Benoit Magimel) meets her at a wedding. He's captivated, despite the her Nietzschean prenup strategy: kill someone to prove your super-human love. That prospect horrifies him. He dearly hopes this is just a kinky fantasy on her part.
Entering his sixth decade, Chabrol remains a master inspector of the criminal heart of the French bourgeoisie.
"Copying Beethoven"
Beethoven's massive Symphony No. 9 looms large in pop culture history. The work once heralded NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley" newscasts. The mighty Ninth figured also in the plot of Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." The score of "Die Hard" sampled it. So did the TV game show "Win Ben Stein's Money." Now director Agnieszka Holland reimagines the symphony's premiere on May 7, 1824, in Vienna.
Holland re-creates a 14-minute performance, a mere slice of the hourlong symphony, and it is the highlight of "Copying Beethoven." The surrounding story is a letdown. Co-writers Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, who co-wrote "Ali" and "Nixon," create the fictional character Anna Holtz (played by Diane Kruger). Four days before the historic concert, the 23-year-old copyist helps the disheveled maestro ready his score. Ed Harris, who previously played painter Jackson Pollock, does an earthy impersonation of Beethoven (1770-1827): He arm-wrestles in a tavern and flashes his backside to pun on the title of his "Moonlight Sonata."
Anna crouches onstage in Beethoven's line of sight so she can cue the nearly deaf conductor. Holland alternates closeups with thrilling flourishes of focus: their dancing hands and swooning eyes unite in a sublime communion.
In another remarkable sequence, Holland samples Beethoven's Grosse Fugue for string quartet. Traveling to his deathbed, Anna visualizes the work's jagged rhythms. Holland turns Anna's rapid glances through her carriage window into notes of racing music.
Despite the trite confines of the biopic script and Harris' kitschy Ludwig, Holland makes a valiant foray into the music video genre. But she unwittingly has made a trailer for a demographic set for whom Opus is only a cartoon penguin.
Source: http://www.msn.com
Doting godmothers and nasty stepmothers pop up in fairy tales. Mothers-in-law are often typecast for comedy. Are bridesmaids in line to embody horror? Oui, answers "The Bridesmaid," a 1989 crime novel by Ruth RendellFrench adapted by auteur Claude Chabrol and co-writer Pierre Leccia.
Senta (Laura Smet) is the title character of this homicide-laced love story embroidered with comic and macabre threads. Philippe (Benoit Magimel) meets her at a wedding. He's captivated, despite the her Nietzschean prenup strategy: kill someone to prove your super-human love. That prospect horrifies him. He dearly hopes this is just a kinky fantasy on her part.
Entering his sixth decade, Chabrol remains a master inspector of the criminal heart of the French bourgeoisie.
"Copying Beethoven"
Beethoven's massive Symphony No. 9 looms large in pop culture history. The work once heralded NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley" newscasts. The mighty Ninth figured also in the plot of Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." The score of "Die Hard" sampled it. So did the TV game show "Win Ben Stein's Money." Now director Agnieszka Holland reimagines the symphony's premiere on May 7, 1824, in Vienna.
Holland re-creates a 14-minute performance, a mere slice of the hourlong symphony, and it is the highlight of "Copying Beethoven." The surrounding story is a letdown. Co-writers Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, who co-wrote "Ali" and "Nixon," create the fictional character Anna Holtz (played by Diane Kruger). Four days before the historic concert, the 23-year-old copyist helps the disheveled maestro ready his score. Ed Harris, who previously played painter Jackson Pollock, does an earthy impersonation of Beethoven (1770-1827): He arm-wrestles in a tavern and flashes his backside to pun on the title of his "Moonlight Sonata."
Anna crouches onstage in Beethoven's line of sight so she can cue the nearly deaf conductor. Holland alternates closeups with thrilling flourishes of focus: their dancing hands and swooning eyes unite in a sublime communion.
In another remarkable sequence, Holland samples Beethoven's Grosse Fugue for string quartet. Traveling to his deathbed, Anna visualizes the work's jagged rhythms. Holland turns Anna's rapid glances through her carriage window into notes of racing music.
Despite the trite confines of the biopic script and Harris' kitschy Ludwig, Holland makes a valiant foray into the music video genre. But she unwittingly has made a trailer for a demographic set for whom Opus is only a cartoon penguin.
Source: http://www.msn.com
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